The present invention relates to a vehicle panel mounting clip for attachment of a decorative panel for a vehicle to the underlying sheet metal support.
There exists a variety of fasteners for use in connection with the mounting of vehicle decorative panels, such as door panels, headliners and the like, to the underlying support members, typically sheet metal beams with apertures for receiving such fasteners. Fasteners have included Christmas tree-type fasteners attached to the decorative panel and including an outwardly projecting shank with a plurality of ribs which snap-fit within a circular aperture in the sheet metal support. Other fasteners have included polymeric members with arrowhead-shaped tips which deflect and snap-fit within apertures in the underlying supports. These fasteners frequently include pins for wedging legs of the fastener outwardly once inserted into the underlying sheet metal. Although such systems provide adequate fastening of a panel to underlying support structure, they do not provide the flexibility of adjustment of the panel with respect to mating apertures formed in the underlying support structure and in some instances can be relatively expensive and difficult to attach to the panel.
There exists, therefore, a need for a relatively inexpensive adjustable fastener which can be attached to a vehicle panel at selected locations and preferably coupled to the panel during assembly of the panel onto the underlying support structure where the final mating of the decorative panel to the vehicle support structure is achieved.